Government Operations Committee on Nov. 26th, 2014

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Clement.

Mr. O'Connor, you have the floor.

[Gordon O'Connor]

Mr. Clement, you keep talking about reducing red tape and when you look at history, the Romans probably had red tape. We all have different ideas of what red tape is. What is red tape?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

We use the term “administrative burden“ to describe red tape for the purposes of legality. It's the effort required for Canadians or businesses to demonstrate compliance with federal regulation. I think that's a workable definition. It's a definition that we consulted on with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and other business advocacy groups, particularly those associated with smaller businesses. We said that we want to make sure this covers things that they are interested in fixing in government.

Red tape can mean all things to all people, I suppose, but we do have the definition in clause 2, the definitions section, which I have just read from. It talks about “completing of forms” and it talks about “collecting, processing, reporting and retaining of information”, so I think that's fairly comprehensive.

[Gordon O'Connor]

We also talk in this bill about one-for-one, that if you want to add something, you have to take something out.

Do you envisage any situation where a department or an agency can get to the point where they can't do that, where they are tight, and they want to add a regulation, but they can't take one out?

How does it work against this bill?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

The bad news is that we have so many regulations, we're nowhere near that point in any department or agency as far as we're aware. Certainly, I think if we have a situation where regulation is so compressed that the administrative burden has been reduced so well that we face that kind of difficulty, that's the kind of difficulty we want to have. We measure each department on a weekly basis when Treasury Board meets to see where they are in the queue. Are they at a point that they have a debit with Treasury Board in terms of needing to find regulations that are of no real value to government, but that create a burden on the small businesses?

Those are the kinds of regulations we're interested in weeding out as we go along.

[Gordon O'Connor]

In this theoretical position, would you then give that department authority to break the rule and add a position without taking one away?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

You're asking me to speculate on a situation that hasn't occurred, so it's difficult for me to answer that.

[Gordon O'Connor]

I'll ask you another question then.

You've touted the fact that we've saved, I forget what it was, two hundred and something—

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

It's 290,000 hours.

[Gordon O'Connor]

The question is related to one I just heard. I don't know how big that is against all the regulations. I don't know if that means something, whether it's 1%, 10%, 20%, or whether it's great success or little success, because I have no relationship against which to compare it.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I'll give you one comparative. We have about 2,500 regulations that are the subject of this act. That gives you a sense of where we are. Nineteen have been repealed so far as a result of this act, so we do have a way to go. Of course, this is not the whole kit and caboodle, as I mentioned. There are other things that we're doing to reduce regulatory burden on businesses, aside from this. What this does is it provides the necessary discipline so that we're not adding to the burden, and at the same time it requires regulatory agencies and government to find ways to reduce the burden.

So, 2,500 regulations. We're a federal society, so there are many more regulations at the provincial level and many more at the municipal level which this act does not apply to. But we're hoping this will be a standard that will spread the good word on reduction of red tape to other levels of government in Canada as well.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. O'Connor.

I give the floor to Ms. Day, who has five minutes.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will first say: QED—what needed to be demonstrated. My question is for Mr. Albas.

Mr. Albas, you have demonstrated that with the “one-for-one” rule, regulations were not decreased, but processing times and costs were reduced. This allowed us to generate savings which, we hope, will be invested in social housing, old age security or poverty reduction in the country.

You spoke about 19 regulations. We would like a copy of the list of these 19 regulations. I will not ask for them now, but you could perhaps submit them to the committee.

In the preamble, the importance of transparency is mentioned. Other than the annual report, what other measures might be taken? Will the five-year evaluation be made public? What transparency measures will be taken to allow us to better understand the process for eliminating regulations on a day-to-day basis? How will data be gathered for the evaluation?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

The transparency of this bill is important. Of course it is. It is also important for consultations with small and medium-sized businesses to be undertaken to determine, for example, whether this bill is useful. I believe that the annual evaluation forms will allow us to draft a report for MPs and Canadians on the usefulness of this important regulation, and all others.

This is part of our strategy, I can assure you. We've had one scorecard report.

I should remind committee members that the people who are assessing are outside of government. It's not Treasury Board Secretariat patting itself on the back. We just provide the information. They are the ones who assess what needs to be done in the future to make continued progress. I think that's a very positive way of going about this.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I will use a concrete example, Mr. Chair. It is the DOT-111 tanker cars. If this new regulation is applied, what other regulation will have to be withdrawn?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Unfortunately, I cannot answer your question, as it would be mere speculation.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

There surely must be an answer, since the DOT-111 tanker cars are no longer used for rail transportation. These tanker cars are the ones that were involved in the Lac-Mégantic incident.

In cases where regulations are repealed, what communications strategy should be implemented to inform businesses of the change in the legislation?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

As I have already said, it is important to have annual results, as well as the report to Parliament.

In general, we have daily discussions with representatives from small and medium-sized businesses. The government and the representatives from the small and medium-sized businesses really work together in order to improve this situation. The Red Tape Reduction Action Plan flows from a partnership with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. I think it is important to maintain a dialogue with these organizations.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

You have 40 seconds.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Very well.

You said the following in your presentation: “As the preamble to Bill C-21states, the One-for-One rule will not compromise public health, public safety or the Canadian economy.”

There are at least three components, but why not the environment or the happiness of Canadians? Why have you chosen these three elements?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

As far as the environment is concerned, if there is a real issue involved, it is the repercussions that it has on Canadians' health. In other words, it is included in the protection of health.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I thank you, Mr. Clement.

I thank you as well, Ms. Day. Your time has expired.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Maguire, for five minutes.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I appreciate your coming forward on this bill, Mr. Clement.

Certainly, I appreciate the NDP's support in this process here in Ottawa. I'll give you a little background in my years in opposition as a Progressive Conservative in Manitoba. Twice this type of a bill was brought forward in the legislature by my colleagues. The critics in these areas were mainly industry and small business. Twice it was defeated by the government in Manitoba at that time, so I'm really pleased to see the cooperation to move this forward.

You've indicated that we've dealt with 19 out of 2,500 regulations and saved $22 million. I don't want to extrapolate that for my colleague who was asking about how much can be saved, but that would be quite an amount of money if it was extrapolated.

This is just one of the areas for which we've brought forward changes regarding the reduction of red tape, the one-for-one rule. Could you outline a few of the other mechanisms we're using to reduce red tape as well?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I already mentioned the forward regulatory plans and the small business lens.

Are there others?